<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Sunny Side Up by CopperBeech</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562103">Sunny Side Up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech'>CopperBeech</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mischief, Naughty, Nudity, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Humor, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Temptation, do not copy to another site</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:42:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley has taken to sunbathing nude at the cottage. Aziraphale has to admit it looks rather enjoyable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>206</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sunny Side Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Purely gratuitous froth. Two weeks of a heavy multi-chaptered fic demanded a dessert course.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Crowley, <em>please.</em> It’s indiscreet.”</p><p>“Thought it was a view you liked. Said so just last night, if I recall.”</p><p>“That doesn’t mean it’s one I want to <em>share.</em>”</p><p>“Can’t see onto this part of the property from any direction. All the hedges. One've the reasons you liked the place.”</p><p>“I was thinking more of your snake form frightening the neighbours.”</p><p>“Well, I hope no one’s frightened of my bare arse. <em>You</em> certainly aren’t.”</p><p>“That’s <em>not the point.</em> What if someone flies over one of those drone thingys? I was reading something in that magazine of Anathema’s about people using them right around here, to photograph crop circles. She still sends them on, you know.”</p><p>“There are no hidden messages on my arse.” Though Aziraphale, if pressed, would have admitted he was receiving one.</p><p>“<em>And</em> you’re going to get a sunburn. People with your colouring always do.”</p><p>“You could rub some sun cream on.”</p><p>“You are incorrigible.”</p><p>“That’s what She said.”</p><p>Crowley rolled over lazily. The noontime garden was sun-saturated, soporific with the faint hum of bees on the echinacea plants (the red variety). He’d been growing out his hair again, and it fanned over the blanket as if he’d deliberately arranged it to look wanton and fetching. The angel wouldn’t have put a cosmetic miracle past him.</p><p>“And you <em>really</em> do not want a sunburn on that side.”</p><p>“Good reason to fling yourself protectively over me.”</p><p>“If you want me to do that, you shall have to come inside.”</p><p>“Think of it alfresco, angel.”</p><p>It was hard not to. The sun glinted in the red-gold hair. All of it. He indulged in the fantasy (only a fantasy, nothing wrong with that) for a moment, then stepped down from the kitchen door, working out of his jacket, and used it to restore the demon’s modesty, if such a thing could be said to exist.</p><p>“Huh. Well, if that’s your offer. I s’pose it could stand in for you as a sort of fetish, not sure the stain would even miracle out…”</p><p>“You wouldn’t dare.”</p><p>“Remind me to tell you what I did the day I stole one of your bowties.”</p><p>“You <em>didn’t.”</em></p><p>“Well, now you’ll have to wonder, won’t you?”</p><p>There was simply no talking to him in these moods. Aziraphale huffed back inside.</p><p> </p><p>*    *    *</p><p> </p><p>The thing was, it did look tempting. Crowley being involved, that went without saying.</p><p>He could at least enjoy the spectacle a little.</p><p>And so it was that at midday next day – after Crowley had enjoyed his morning putter in the garden, spread a blanket when it got too hot, and unceremoniously stripped off – the angel emerged from the kitchen door, looking faintly Oxbridgian in a straw boater, carrying an armful of the outdoor cushions from the front veranda, a book clamped under the other arm, and a tartan Thermos flask.</p><p>“Angel, you look positively nude. Where’s your tie?”</p><p>“Someplace you won’t do something rude with it while my back is turned.”</p><p>“I could do something rude with<em> you</em> while your back is turned.”</p><p>“Hmph. Budge over a bit.” The cushions fell in a heap; he set down the book and Thermos rather more carefully.</p><p>“I hope there’s nothing Holy in that.”</p><p>Aziraphale unscrewed the cap. “Cucumber water. It’s supposed to be very cooling.”</p><p>When he looked over from his book Crowley was supine with two of the cucumber slices on his eyes and a flannel standing in for a fig leaf.</p><p>“Is this some sort of an Infernal ritual?”</p><p>“It’s meant to be soothing.  Get rid of bags and dark circles.”</p><p>“Perhaps if you didn’t stay up so late.”</p><p>“You weren’t complaining last night.”</p><p>“Hmph,” said Aziraphale again and went back to his copy of <em>Clarissa.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>*    *    *</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>”No shoes or waistcoat? Where will this end?”</p><p>“One’s feet do get rather hot. And you know how long I’ve had that waistcoat. It wouldn’t do to let it get faded.”</p><p>“What've you got there?”</p><p>“Some proper shrubs. Refreshing and restorative in the heat of summer.”</p><p>Crowley rolled to his stomach and accepted a tall orange glass. “At this rate I may get you into the nineteen-fifties by September.”</p><p>“Frightful decade. I hardly saw anything of you.”</p><p>“Making up for it?”</p><p>“Well, there’s certainly quite a lot of you on display now.”</p><p>Crowley pillowed his head on his arms, barely holding the drink upright in one loose hand. “Don’t just look, get some cream on it.”</p><p>Aziraphale decided not to comment on his phrasing.</p><p> </p><p>*     *     *</p><p> </p><p>“Angel, this is the slowest striptease in the world.”</p><p>“It’s merely getting hotter as the summer wears on, Crowley.”</p><p>“That white cotton vest, quite the butch aesthetic. <em>Stellaaaaaa!”</em></p><p>“I’ll assume that’s an unfamiliar cultural reference.”</p><p>“Oh, forgot, you only like plays in pentameter.”</p><p>“I’ll have you know I was at the premiere of <em>Lady Windermere’s Fan.”</em></p><p>“So was that vest, I’ll bet.”</p><p> </p><p>*     *     *</p><p> </p><p>By the time the angel resurrected his 1890s bathing costume, they both had freckles. Crowley’s seemed inevitable given his colouring. Aziraphale’s were  a pleasant surprise to the demon, dusting the tops of his forearms and his broad shoulders.</p><p>“Did you really wear something like that on <em>my</em> body? I should mount an action for defamation – well, some kind of action – Hold on, I missed a spot. -- They must have been rolling in the aisles.”</p><p>“Strangely, there was no comedic effect. I emptied the house rather.”</p><p>“Sorry I didn’t get to see Bubs’ face.”</p><p>“It didn’t seem to change expression.”</p><p>“Even at seeing me in that fetching state of undress? Disappointing. Here, do my back.”</p><p>“I believe I overheard the phrase ‘bag of antlers’ – <em>stop it! That tickles!”</em></p><p> </p><p>*    *    *</p><p>
  
</p><p>Eventually, Aziraphale came down on a decided preference for the sandalwood-scented sun cream over the one with a vague fruity smell. He reasoned that the midges liked it less, but it also was a bit the way Crowley’s hair smelled regardless. It was nice to carry with him back into his clothes for the rest of the day.</p><p>Almost all his clothes, by now. He wasn’t sure what he liked best, the transgressive novelty of being outdoors in nothing but a pair of silk boxer briefs, or the companionate feeling of dozing and reading with Crowley beside him, or the sheer sultry radiance of the English high summer.</p><p>He’d given up trying to read plotty things and was thumbing through Anathema’s latest dispatch of the <em>New Aquarian.</em> Crowley lay in a scatter of gadget catalogues and glossy periodicals, with the fashion magazine he’d been perusing open behind his head.</p><p>“Why ever are you reading about the return of the pencil skirt?”</p><p>“Oh, just next time I’m Ashtoreth, wanted to look sharp.”</p><p>“If you were Ashtoreth, at least you wouldn’t have to worry about getting sunburnt on. Well.” The angel risked a glance down; there was something entirely too fascinating about the freckles scattered over the long thighs, right up to where that little shrub of amber curls disappeared under the flannel.</p><p>He was pretty sure the tradition about freckles and angel kisses meant that the second created the first, but considered that they could be a roadmap. <em>Place kiss here. Repeat at next hashmark.</em> It <em>would </em>be exciting to do something a bit naughty out here in the laden breezes – the way he’d seen them do in Eden, leaving a guardian angel slightly perplexed, not least about why the sight of a demon slithering up onto the wall had briefly thrown his mind back to the spectacle.</p><p>“Caught you lookin,’ ” drawled Crowley. “Make yourself useful.” He tossed the tube of sun cream, lay back, stretched luxuriously. Damn if he didn’t deliberately make the thing <em>twitch</em> a little.</p><p>“You’re getting all freckley on your arms here – “</p><p>“So’re you.”</p><p>“You can do that or I can do this.”</p><p>“Oh, all right. Mhm – nice.”</p><p>“These are getting quite dark. Who would have expected?”</p><p>“<em>Sssssss.</em> I really think you've rubbed it well in there.”</p><p>“Making sure.”</p><p>“There <em>are</em> other bits requiring attention.”</p><p>“Taking my time.”  It was giddy to realize he was actually doing this – in the open air, with a pair of sparrows having a domestic in the hydrangea, a sulfur moth flitting by to investigate the foxgloves. Crowley’s skin radiated heat – the image of him sunning, serpent-form, on the rockery flashed into the angel's mind, and why was that making him more excited? And <em>that </em>heat wasn’t entirely from the sun –</p><p>Remarkable how something as exiguous as a pair of silk boxers could suddenly seem excessive. They were still caught on his ankle when Crowley hiked up on one arm.</p><p>“Angel, you haven’t had that out at <em>all.</em> Better get some of this right on it.” The demon smelled of sweat and sandalwood, the bees were humming loudly in the coneflowers, the grass tickled where his entangled foot had edged off the blanket. “In fact – feeling a little heroic today – might make the brave choice to throw myself on something that looks like it could explode – “</p><p>“We never did get anything on your legs – “</p><p>“Oh, you <em>will.</em>” The bees were even louder, unless that was blood rushing in his ears, Crowley knew exactly what that tongue in the hollow of his throat did to him, and now he was going to feel that with nothing between him and the burning blue of the sky –</p><p>“<em>Aaaaaack!!!!”</em></p><p>“Shh, angel. <em>Sound</em> carries.”</p><p>“Let me up – “</p><p><em>“Sssss.</em> You know we serpentsss love it when the prey ssstruggles.”</p><p>“No, you<em> idiot</em>, look <em>up – "</em></p><p>“Hm?”  Crowley disengaged – that was going to leave a mark – and glanced over his shoulder, without stopping what he was doing with his free hand. “Ah, one of the nicer ones. Someone’s got a budget.”</p><p>“I told you – people are tramping everywhere flying these camera things – “</p><p>“Well, let’s give whoever it is a good show.”</p><p>And <em>that</em> shouldn’t make him want to pull Crowley down and grind himself against sweaty, slick demon belly, but the instinct almost won out – <em>almost – </em> “You madman – <em>shoo! Go away!”</em> He flapped hands in a frantic warding gesture.</p><p>The drone, hovering at optimal elevation, showed no sign of doing any such thing.</p><p>“Ah, relax. Where’s your sense of fun?”</p><p>“Crowley, at least I have <em>some</em> shreds of propriety left, though after a year of living with you I can’t think how.”</p><p>“Oh, all right.”</p><p>Crowley snapped, and the little whirring device circled once and settled in front of the wisteria trellis, like a gleaming metal spider.</p><p><em>Gotcha,</em> said that Infernal grin.</p><p>“Impulse purchase. <em>You </em>gave me the idea. Can’t wait to download the photos and see your face.”</p><p>Aziraphale considered his options. <em>Shake you by the lapels till your teeth rattle </em>appealed, except for the tragic absence of lapels.</p><p>“You utter and absolute – “</p><p>“Hottie?" Crowley's eyebrows had a language all their own. "Fuckboi? Snack?”</p><p>“I ought to – “ Invention stalled. Whatever he did, Crowley would probably enjoy it.</p><p>He certainly seemed to be enjoying the angel’s unaccountably persistent state. Very directly.</p><p>“You remember how I liked that room with the mirrors, the night we packed everything up and had to stay at the Dorchester. Sort've the same thing.”</p><p>“All right – ahhh! – <em>Might </em>we take this inside for now? Now that you’ve had your fun.”</p><p>“Okay, angel. Fair enough. No reason you shouldn’t get to have yours.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>finis</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I suspect this was influenced by GayDemonicDisaster’s "Roomba Of Doom,"<br/>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066155/chapters/55171642<br/>in which Crowley acquires a demonic pet robot vacuum. He is rather the gadget type.</p><p>If you liked, please share, reblog, comment! Come say Hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>